Yesterday, we took a field trip down to the Mighty Mississippi River. We had a crazy storm last week that dumped anywhere from 2-7 inches of rain in about 12 hours time!! EVERYONE had water in their basements, and our road had all kinds of new ruts in it! Well, all that water dumped QUICKLY into the river.
Last week it was normal or below normal levels. But, yesterday it was more then 11 feet above flood stage!! It rose that quickly in just 3 days time! The kids weren't really all that thrilled, but we had to go see history being made. I think it was the first flood on the Mississippi they had ever seen. 2 summers ago we were able to see a bunch of flooding on the Missouri, so I guess flooding isn't completely new to them.
To be fair, I have read of some crazy amounts of flooding going on in other parts of the Midwest. Ours didn't cause any damage that people aren't used to. While the flooding doesn't come up this high very often (they say this was the 5th highest in recorded history) these are still areas that are 'used' to or at least have preparation measures for floods. The levees have all done what they are supposed to. But, it's still very neat to see!
The river does not have a levee here, so there is a lot of ground underwater! Maybe a mile or two.
The only house we saw under water, but as you can see it was built up.
Road closed :).
The Mighty Mississippi. Looks a lot different then it did last year!
The old bridge. It was closed, but it used to be the only way to get across here!
They have since built the bigger bridge that I was on while taking the photo. They had traffic going both ways on what is usually a one way bridge.
The riverfront. Looks a little different normally!
What the farmers do with their equipment during a flood.
This is our good friend's field. I guess it will be a bit before he gets to plant!!
I know that the kids weren't too excited about this Sunday drive to look at water, but it will be nice to have a frame of reference when we study floods or talk about them in our learning.
To see what other people found for letter F, be sure to check out the weekly link up at Ben and Me. Feel free to join us, too!
Thanks for stopping by!!
God Bless,
Lisa
2 comments:
Wow that is quite an impressive amount of water in a short amount of time!
Wow! That is amazing! We have been stuck in a drought here but had some rain finally last week. It doesn't know what to do when it drops a whole lot of rain like that at once... glad you guys are doing well and hope you are all rested from vacation :)
Post a Comment